By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

WWE Raw on Monday, August 29 scored a 3.14 rating, which is in-between a 2.97 rating last week and 3.27 rating on August 15 the night after Summerslam.

Raw averaged 4.65 million viewers, up slightly from an average of 4.64 million viewers last week. The first hour averaged 4.79 million viewers, but slipped to 4.52 million viewers in the second hour.

It was the fewest second hour viewers of the year (other than the July 4 episode) and the fewest since October 11, 2010 up against a highly-rated Brett Favre Monday Night Football game.

-- Looking at the demographics, Raw saw significant week-to-week increases in males 18-34, males 12-34, and males 12-17 (the younger crowd). Adults & males 18-49 were virtually flat compared to last week.

Raw faced weaker-than-usual competition from NFL pre-season football on NFL Network (rather than ESPN), and weaker-than-usual competition from History Channel programming. Only TNT's hit dramas averaged more viewers on Monday night than Raw.

On cable TV Monday night, Raw ranked #3 overall (behind the TNT shows) and #1 among males 18-34 and males 18-49. Among younger males, Raw ranked #2 behind MTV's new series "Ridiculousness" and "Death Valley" in the second hour, which appeared to impact Raw's second hour viewership.

-- Looking back to last year, the August 30, 2010 Raw scored a 3.50 rating (vs. 3.14 this year). It was the peak rating for the rest of 2010 before WWE nose-dived to a 3.00 rating on Labor Day and began facing regular season NFL Monday Night Football on ESPN.

The 2011 demographic ratings show significant erosion compared to last year this week. The only demographic even close to 2010 is males 18-34 (2.47 rating on 8/30/10 vs. 2.40 rating on 8/29/11).

Among younger males 12-17, this week's Raw was down 41 percent compared to the 2010 Raw. Among the older crowd of males 18-49, this week's Raw was down 20 percent compared to last year.

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